Non-Electric Gadgets

So...as a newbie to this idea, anyone want to help me come up with a list of non-electric gadgets? I watched a video on the Dervaes Family (Path To Freedom) and they have gadgets, they just do not use electricity. It showed a hand crank blender...but I would like to know what else is out there. Anyone want to help with this list and maybe where to find these things? I do ALOT of cooking and baking and we feed alot of people outside of our family so I do enjoy using gadgets for efficency. I like the idea of using my own strength...no future "Granny arms" for me!

***I did contact the Country Living Grain Mill company and they said that if there were enough requests, they could make a lifetime warranty manual blender or manual version of a Kitchen Aid Mixer (including parts for purchase for fixing and maintenence) if there were enough requests. I LOVE that idea!

Knives.
Whisks.
Cleavers.
Mallets.
Axes.

Less smart-assed:
Solar ovens.
Wood-fired ovens.
Pit ovens.

I have a hand-crank blender. It works, but not as well as an electric one. It takes quite a bit of time to make a smoothie in it, and it's not nearly as smooth as in an electric blender.

Now I would be the first to admit to being overly analytical at times, but when you talk about lots of manual labor:
- I often hear that our industrial food supply depends on 9 calories of fossil fuels for each calorie of food
- People eat a lot of industrial food - and more when they do more manual labor!
- So doesn't each calorie spent toward manual labor really trace back to food from a lot of fossil fuels? Is it possible that in these giddy pre-apocalypse times that we might SAVE energy (and food!) by using electric gadgets for any of us not already converted over to 90% non-industrial food)

I opt for manual labor quite a bit -- I rarely can justify needing LESS exercise in my life! But I don't overdo it either -- I won't be out trying to scythe hay from my 40 acres...

Tell me why manual labor doesn't come from industrial farm energy -- this is a rare case I would prefer to be wrong....

Coffee hand-grinder. Food moulis. A heavy morter and pestle. The legendary 'Swift-whip' rotary eggbeater. I have no idea if they're just a NZ thing, but any self-respecting housewife used to have one. Beats egg whites, cream, etc really, really fast.
A potato ricer, a sieve and a good spatula are hardly gadgets, but they make life in the kichen a lot smoother
Don't forget the meat and grain grinders. And the pasta machine.

How about a French Press coffee maker? No electricity, nor no filters to buy.
Makes great coffee, and they come in many sizes.

A squeezo is a great hand cranked tool. It seporates the skin and seeds from tomatoes and berrys very well. A steam juicer does not need electric, only heat that can be provided by many different means. Hand meat grinders are great as well as apple peelers, and cherry pitters all with a hand crank. I have an old Veg-O Matic that slices french fries and sliced potates and other veggies very well with one push. My son has a hand cranked ice crusher that is great for many different types of drinks. The old fashioned egg beaters mentioned befor work very well. I have a hand cranked nut grinder that we use alot to grind up walnuts for cooking. Turns out there are alot of kitchen tools with a crank, just look around.

Once you learn how to use it, it is amazing how much you can cut with a scythe in a day. It leaves the grass in nice rows for collect too - which I appreciate when feeding the sheep.

You are right Fred, the main thing is to learn how to use one with out killing yourself. When I was 17 I worked for a road paving co, the owner thought I might be a bit young to go out on the paving crew so he kept me in the shop for several weeks seeing what I could do. One day he handed me a scythe and told me to go cut all of the brush and weeds that had grown up around the equipment in storage in the fenced in yard. I had no clue how to operate a scythe. I was using my arms and after a very short time they were ready to fall off. My back hurt, my arms hurt, my whole body hurt. Befor noon I had gotten into the only position that my body could stand. I bent at the waist, held my arms steady and moved at the waist. You body does the work, not your arms or your back. It is so much easier and so much more comfortible to work a scythe once you know how to use the tool. No one told me how to do it, my body told me, it got into the only position it could stand and still do any work. I wish the old Gentelman who ran the Co had given me a bit of training when he handed me that scythe.

http://www.lehmans.com/

Sells lots of nonelectric gadgets. Why not use them as a resource to make your list?

we have a deli slicer that has a hand crank on it the elecrtice ones where way to high i got this one for 5.00 at the flea market talk about a deal i dont now how much money it saves me but alot we buy in bulk and slice it all up and package are meat and it seems to be alot better than the small packages it may just be me tho

I've been looking arround for some time, but I can't find anything I can ship at an affordable price to Belgium.
So, does anyone know a brand of a supplier on main land Europe?
If I know a brand, I might be able to find a supplier in Belgium or get it at home with travellers who can pick it up.
I will try this myself for the UK next summer, but USA is harder to get.

Looking for a blender, sweet chestnut pealer, walnut pealer, ...

The oilpress that is also for sale on Lemans comes from the Netherlands, so that's for half the Lehmans price
But the other tool brands are unknown for me in Europe.

Apple pealer hand crank apple cider for apples hand crank smasher all I can think of for know but I'm sure their are much more

Don't forget the cherry pitter. You can ever make your own out of a cheep fork. (though it is less gadget-y that way)

http://www.cottagecraftworks.com/non-electric-kitchen-appliances-hand-crank-appliances-c-53_290_291.html

Lots of interesting stuff. Kitchen Aid, Bosch, Vitamix. AIR powered kitchen tools? Wow.

almost all the original food processing companys did hand cranked versions of their tools.

Le Cuisene for Cuisinart, prob Bosch too..

I have a couple "cone" slicer/ processors , and the big clamp on mixer that just fits over the top of a bowl.
Still havn't gotten a "disc" food processor for seed removal and baby foods yet.

Just got a copy of the old Pepperidge Farms cookbook, with most of the old stuff illustrated.

Look up an old Sears or Montgomery Ward catalog.

A simple knife can be a hugely versatile tool if it's well-made and maintained.

Mandolin slicer. You can slice paper thin or julienne. Two small cleavers , one in each hand , and a butcher block and you can mince a pile of herbs into pesto in minutes . If you can keep a beat you can chop a good drum solo too. I made a cup of mayo two nights ago with a bowl and a wisp - takes about ten minutes.
A food sieve will puree most fruits and vegies , you can stir in purees instead of blending for smoothies/soups. I have made little chicken sausages by using two cleavers to mince the meat . add seasoning , stuff into the skin off the legs and tie ends , grill. I worked as chef in 70's and 80's and we were able to produce all textures and shapes of foods with an assortment of knives and non-motorized , non-cranked gadgets.

I own a 107 year old printing press that is treadle powered, which is put to use for making labels, tags, and handouts. I also have a roughly 70 year old paper cutter.


If you look long and hard enough, you could build an entire wood shop out of people powered tools that are like their modern electric equivalents. Lathes, table saws, drill presses, etc.. I have a hand brace, which works nearly as well as a modern electric drill, unless you are drilling large quantities of holes.

I also own a reel mower and a grass whip for lawn care.

Not as easy to use as a modern computer, but how about putting typewriters on this list?

Old post resurrection to ask - does anyone here have experience using a manual typewriter on a fairly regular basis?
My laptop has gone to the great recycling depot in the sky, and while I can use the library or the "household" behemoth desktop for internet access, I would also like a way to continue work on writing the next great Canadian novel

I am thinking of buying a typewriter locally, since it will save me money and should last approximately a bajillion times longer then another "cheap" computer. But I've never used one, ever!

Gosh, I used a manual typewriter for decades before finally switching to a computer because of the word processing feature. I no longer have a typewriter but I wish I did. I'd snarf one up in a second if I saw one at a yard sale or thrift store. The main problem would be ribbons. I don't know if old ribbons are still available.

Manual typewriters take a bit of pressure to depress the keys. It just takes a bit of practice to get the hang of it. And your hands may get tired at first. But I used to be a whiz on those keys.

Maintenance:
Keep the mechanism free of dust and properly lubricated. It makes it much easier to use that way.
Clean the ink build up off the key heads from time to time. Otherwise the o's, a's, and e's come out solid.
Re-ink or replace the ribbon when the print becomes too faded.
Don't drop it onto the floor. I did that once and broke the carriage return.

I think I'll be able to get ribbons, if I match up whatever typewriter I get with ribbons that are still availible. Apparently there is still a (non-"antique"-collecting) market for typewriters and ribbon in such places as prisons and certain government offices in North America, and of course in other parts of the world without wide-spread reliable electrification, like India.
So, I sent a message to someone advertising a 1960's typewriter for sale relatively locally, asking about the ribbon size so I can check ebay, etc., for replacements, and then I might just go and buy it!
I know that my spelling will suffer without spell check, but that's alright with me, as I'll mostly be typing to myself, at least initially.

One thing to make sure before you get one is that the keyboard layout is the appropriate one for the language you will be writing in.

I picked up an old typewriter at a yardsale, for about the price of a head of cauliflower. It's an ugly orange thing, and wouldn't work. But I love mechanical things and figured why not bring it home, I can go a week without cauliflower.


images from my blog

I gently took it apart and discovered that it was simply the spring had gotten a bit stiff in the back. A bit of light sewing machine oil and it worked loose again.



The only real problem with it, is that it doesn't speak English. The typewriter is from Germany, so the keys take a bit of getting use to, but I can still write with it. I hope one day to trade it in for an older, english speaking, less orange one. There are not many left in town because of Steampunks cannibalize them for decoration, so I make do with orange.

We have an early 1900's Underwood typewriter that still works fine. It's a bit of a workout on the fingers after using a computer keyboard. A bit like the difference between playing an organ and a piano ;>). Ours gets very infrequent use. One tip that I'd like to pass on is that if you don't use it regularly, it helps to wind up the ribbon onto one spool so it doesn't dry out. The ribbon will last for many years if stored that way. Haven't tried re-inking a ribbon yet. Fortunately the Underwood used a very common ribbon. I used to put together a bioregional newsletter the old- school way. I typed it up, went to the local copy shop and did reductions or enlargements on their copier and cut and paste it into the master copy that we would use for printing. Someone once asked me what software I was using!

Corn Sheller from about the 1880s.


Wooden Handle on Corn Sheller.

On my farm, I produce somewhere around 100 Calories of food for each Calorie of diesel burned up in the tractor.

I produce about 33 Calories of food for each Calorie that is required to keep the farmer alive to plant and harvest.

However, considering the externality of the energy required to produce the steel used in the tractor, and amortizing it over the 60 year lifespan of the tractor, it turns out that my farm would need to be twice as large as it currently is in order to break even and produce more calories than it took to make the steel to make the tractor.

If I consider the truck I use to take food to market, my farm would need to be 3X larger than it currently is to break even on energy. Eventually, the steel in the tractor and truck may be recycled, so it's hard to say how much energy the externalities of the farm are really requiring.

But, it's not just me... The energy embedded into the steel of a shovel is about the same as required to feed a human for a couple years.

The energy embedded in a typical push mower could feed about 18 people per year over the 8 year expected lifetime of the mower.

Fred Morgan wrote:Once you learn how to use it, it is amazing how much you can cut with a scythe in a day. It leaves the grass in nice rows for collect too - which I appreciate when feeding the sheep.

Here in New England my Great Grandfather would not hire anyone who could not mow 3 acres per day while his better workers could do 5 acres per day. One day while out mowing with our tractor and mowing machine my Uncle quipped how "we just have to get the AC fixed in this tractor". I laughed and mentioned that our ancestors would kill us for complaining about a little heat...today we knock down 200 acres a day, and that includes hauling it home and putting it in the bunker.

I have two treadle sewing machines that still work. Though my Grandmother had many electric one given to her, she refused to use them and used the treadle machines right up to her death. The treadle principal can be applied to all manner of woodworking equipment like lathes, scrollsaws, tablesaws and the like. If you want tunes while you cook up dinner you can have a wee-one hand crank a phonograph or music box. I have a hand cranked clothes washing machine; again from my late grandmother, and while we do not use it; it is there if need be. When the power has gone out I have employed her hand cranked well pump to get water for our modern home. And on the construction side of things; I have a hand cranked cement mixer, it doubles under electrical power too. Finally we have a hand cranked phone; yes like you see from the 1930's that we had working well up into the 1980's. It only went from our house to my Grandparents to my Uncle, but it still worked/works!!

I am out of ideas at the moment, but my suggestion is to go to a local museum. You would be surprised at the innovation in hand cranked implements. Just before electricity went big the Sears and Roebuck Catalog did too, therefore a company producing hand cranked corn cob shellers in Boston would ship them all over the country. No matter where you live museums are teeming with hand cranked ideas.

Here is the 1901 hand cranked clothes washing machine that we have (our home is modern but we made our kitchen to look like the 1930's).

Sorry, I should have cropped out the rechargeable lithioum-ion battery charger slipped into a GFCI outlet...that was hardly around in the 1930's was it!

You could add these to your list of non electric gadgets:
Nut cracker, I had one that cracked the shell and left the pecan meat whole
Apple peeler, we use one often

I think the Italian meat slicer is a work of art.

http://volanobiz.com

 I've seen many used to slice Slovenian prosciutto in Slovenia.

I'd love to get one someday.

I did not see the juicer in the list yet. There are several makes available. This is the closest one to the one we got as a wedding gift.

This looks like a good bunch of gadgets

Eric Thompson wrote:Now I would be the first to admit to being overly analytical at times, but when you talk about lots of manual labor:
- I often hear that our industrial food supply depends on 9 calories of fossil fuels for each calorie of food
- People eat a lot of industrial food - and more when they do more manual labor!
- So doesn't each calorie spent toward manual labor really trace back to food from a lot of fossil fuels?  Is it possible that in these giddy pre-apocalypse times that we might SAVE energy (and food!) by using electric gadgets for any of us not already converted over to 90% non-industrial food)
...

Interesting what nuggets you can find in old threads.

Eric, I don't know if you have yet found an answer to your excellent question, but I don't see anybody in this thread addressing it, so I thought I'd at least acknowledge that the case you have outlined is worth investigating.  I've thought about it too, since giving up my car, and I've concluded that the answers aren't all simple.  And it's also a broader issue than just whether or not to use an electric device since the same concerns arise around fossil fuel-powered devices.

There are a few factors that have to be considered: where you get your calories, your level of fitness, the comparative energy demands of the human-powered and machine-powered versions of an activity, and  whether making a task easier encourages waste.

Where You Get Your Calories

There's no doubt that a significant increase in exertion leads to a greater demand for calories in the diet.  A court case here in Canada between foot courier Wayne Scott and Canada Revenue Agency resulted in bike and foot couriers here being able to write off part of their grocery bill as a business expense.  Scott actually estimated that his energy intake was 1,300 calories / day higher due to his work.  But how you get those additional calories has a big effect on what the agricultural multiplier is.  The much repeated 10:1 calorie ratio is an average over all foods consumed in the U.S. The corresponding value for a particular food can be significantly higher or lower.  For things like instant coffee, which have high energy inputs and virtually no calories, the ratio can be astronomical, but even in high calorie foods like beef or pork the ratio can be 50:1 or more.   On the other hand, by eating local foods, eating low on the food chain and especially by growing your own food sustainably, you can actually do better than 1:1 (the bare minimum for a sustainable diet).

Your Fitness Level

This is pretty straightforward.  The more you exercise your muscles, the more efficient they become and the less energy they will use in performing any given task.  So if you're going to do things by the sweat of your brow, it's best if you are in good shape.  Happily, this is something that you don't have to think about.  It will just happen!

Comparative Energy Demands

This is where things get interesting.  To understand why, let's look at a few example activities.

- Sewing: electric sewing machine vs. treadle sewing machine

Sewing is a fairly sedentary activity even if you are using a treadle machine.  The boost in dietary calories from a day of pumping the treadle would, I think, be negligible.  An average electric sewing machine uses about 100 Watts, so not what I'd call negligible.  Looks like a win for the manual side.  However, if you are working by artificial light, you will have to consider how much faster you can sew with an electric machine, because the energy for task lighting is also part of the equation.  You probably have to give this one to the electric sewing machine unless you are sewing by natural light.

- Commuting: car or motorcycle vs. bicycle

Cycling is an activity that really can boost your calorie demand.  Yet it is also an area where the human-powered approach is clearly better.  The reason is a combination of mass and wind resistance.   A bicycle plus rider may tip the scales at 70 - 90 kg.  Most motorbikes with riders weight between 250 and 380 kg.   In the stop and go of commuter traffic, this means big energy savings for the cyclist.   Then consider how little wind resistance a bike at 25 km/h will have to deal with compared to a motorcycle or car at 60-100km/h.  When you throw in the vehicle's life cycle energy costs, including maintenance and eventual replacement, the bicycle is the clear winner.

- Cutting Firewood: chainsaw or bucksaw

Either way, this is a fairly strenuous activity with all the wood to be moved and stacked, but there's no doubt that the sawyer with the bucksaw will be more tired -- and hungry -- at the end of the day and will probably have to go out again for the next 6 days to catch up to the chainsaw wielder.  So let's agree that there's a significant energy cost to bucking by hand, including whatever multiplier is appropriate for your particular diet.  How does it compare to the energy expended by the chainsaw?  Well, I really don't know.  The wider kerf a chainsaw cut means more work (in the physics sense) is being done to cut a log by chainsaw than by bucksaw.  The wider kerf also means marginally more waste (more of the tree becomes sawdust instead of firewood).  But the cyclic motion of the engine and chain are more efficient when compared to the oscillating motion of torso, arm and saw of the bucksaw user.  You can cut quite a lot of wood on a gallon of gas.  I'm going to say that there's no clear winner here.  I'd be happy to hear other opinions.

To summarize this point, the energy demands of a human powered activity are often much lower than those of its motorized equivalent, but you really have to consider each case on its merits.

Do Easier Tasks Encourage Waste?

When I started doing things by hand, under my own steam, I started to develop a deeper appreciation for the energy I use.  I think this is normal.  I think a lot of people here have experienced it.  If you commute by bike rather than by car, you may still have to go to work every day, but how likely are you to choose job and a home that are 50 km apart?  If you use a knife instead of a food processor for all your chopping, might you not then decide that your soups are just as good chunky as they are silky smooth?  I don't suppose you'll use more pepper just because you've got an electric pepper mill or brush your teeth more often because you have an electric tooth brush, but how much more careful we would be with our water use if every faucet was equipped with a foot pump!

Now back to your question Eric: might we SAVE energy by using electric gadgets?  I would say that it's possible, but rare, and that those instances where it happens are minor when compared with the cases where the reverse is true.

- Cutting Firewood: chainsaw or bucksaw

Either way, this is a fairly strenuous activity with all the wood to be moved and stacked, but there's no doubt that the sawyer with the bucksaw will be more tired -- and hungry -- at the end of the day and will probably have to go out again for the next 6 days to catch up to the chainsaw wielder.  So let's agree that there's a significant energy cost to bucking by hand, including whatever multiplier is appropriate for your particular diet.  How does it compare to the energy expended by the chainsaw?  Well, I really don't know.  The wider kerf a chainsaw cut means more work (in the physics sense) is being done to cut a log by chainsaw than by bucksaw.  The wider kerf also means marginally more waste (more of the tree becomes sawdust instead of firewood).  But the cyclic motion of the engine and chain are more efficient when compared to the oscillating motion of torso, arm and saw of the bucksaw user.  You can cut quite a lot of wood on a gallon of gas.  I'm going to say that there's no clear winner here.  I'd be happy to hear other opinions.

To summarize this point, the energy demands of a human powered activity are often much lower than those of its motorized equivalent, but you really have to consider each case on its merits.

This is where I have gone electric not 2 cycle fuel and oil.  My local electricity come from hydro electric and wind and is lower cost than many areas but even so the amount of energy to run the electric chainsaw and band saw is minimal. The gas saw is hard to start and is generally kept running between each cut but the electric starts and stops with each cut. What if the wood is further away than your extension cord reaches? Well we picked up a seldom used generator for power outages and the gas in the tank needs to be used before it goes stale. So I load the generator, a large and small electric chainsaw and the Jawsaw into a nursery wagon and head for the woods. I found I used less gas for the same number of trees and the generator is quieter than the motor on the electric chainsaw so I don't have to wear ear protection.

Real quick, since this thread originally about "non-electric gadgets" I've got two fantastic ones:

A Minipresso (manual espresso maker) and a Bean and Bistro manual grinder.

The grinder can do everything from espresso (or close to it) on up.

The both work pretty fantastically.

'hope that helps someone

Ari

Look on youtube for some of the russian/eastern european homemade adaptions.  I am delighted and amazed at the inventiveness of my fellow humans.  Here is a hand powered bailer.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5hnuVrEkik  

I am not a purist.  Given the choice, I would much rather use a chain saw than a buck saw to put up a wood pile for the winter, probably prefer the bucksaw for one or two smallish logs.  I'm not a young buck with lots of excess energy anymore.  

Years ago I used both electric and manual typewriters.  I would much rather use an electric typewriter than a manual if I have standard electricity available. There is a cost/benefit calculation that everyone does when they decide what job to do and how to do it.  If the costs/options change, then I will adjust.  

It definitely makes sense to me to have hand powered tools and be proficient in their use, because there may come a time when that's all I have.  Also, sometimes the work site isn't near power or I just want peace and quiet.

Another manual baler in action. I like this one because only a small amount of hardware is required to build it. Jump to 1:22 for a description of the baler and to see it used. Plans to building one are here.

Doing more research as I'm about in position to afford the expensive parts to build my own wind turbine to generate electicity. I live in an area considered prime windfarm area, so....  

http://theselfsufficientliving.com/free-diy-or-homemade-wind-turbine-plans-and-designs/  This isn't hand powered but at least hand crafted. One thing I have most days here is the wind.

Besides this freshens this post plus some other links to some durable hand powered (if expensive if ready made) appliances.. thank you.

I have a thing you crank to shred your potatoes.  It looks like an old coffee grinder.  It is just big enough to stick a single potato in.  You crank and the shredded bits fall out the bottom into the frying pan.  It is supposed to go into a bowl where you mix in egg, salt, and spices.  But I don't see any point to dirtying and other dish.
When I was a kid there were all these tacky things made by ronko(not sure of the spelling.  They were mostly plastic and fell apart after a couple of uses.